Stephen K. Sherwood, CMF
Introduction
The question of the background of the Fourth Gospel relates to the question of its provenance and intended audience. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was fashionable to see the gospel as addressed to Greeks. In such an interpretation, one would look for allusions to Greek thought, especially philosophy (such as the Logos) and mythology as background for the gospel. It was thought that the author of the gospel could not have lived in Palestine because he was obviously unfamiliar with its geography and it was observed that the writer often quoted from the Septuagint and not the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. The gospel’s dualism (e.g. light versus darkness) was taken as a clue that the gospel was gnostic in origin.
After the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947, scholars began to see the gospel in the context of the Qumran sectaries. The author of the gospel, John, was said in the gospel to be a disciple of John the Baptist. John, in turn, was seen as having close ties with the Qumran Essenes. The dualism found in the writings of the Dead Sea sectaries showed that one didn’t have to look outside Palestine to find the kind of dualism that one finds in the gospel. Writers began to speculate on whether Jesus himself had been an Essene or even the so-called “Teacher of Righteousness” himself.
But since Raymond Brown’s monumental 1966 commentary, it has been recognized that the most important area in which to look for background for the gospel is the Old Testament and early Jewish literature.
What I propose to do in this lecture is to illustrate the Old Testament background of some passages in the Fourth Gospel. Some of these may be known to some of you, but to others perhaps not.
“Behold the Man”
Jn 19:5 and 1 Sam 9:16
In John’s Passion narrative, after Jesus has been flogged and crowned with thorns, Pilate leads him out before the crowd and declares, “Behold the man.”
What does the author of the gospel mean by these words? Some see Pilate’s words as an expression of admiration for Jesus’ ability to bear horrific pain without crying out. The meaning would be something like, “Here’s a real man!” This would fit in with what cultural anthropologists tell us about the views of manliness held by the Mediterranean peoples of Jesus’ time. A man was conditioned to bear pain in silence.
Such an interpretation implies the statement about the Suffering Servant that he did not cry out (Is 53:7, “Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth ….”). This approach is expressed by the popular spiritual, “He never said a mumblin’ word.”
It is certainly true that the author of the Fourth Gospel sees Jesus as fulfilling the prophecies regarding the Servant of the Lord, especially in his being “lifted up.” But when the gospel speaks of Jesus’ silence, it is in the context of his refusal to respond to Pilate’s questions.
Another interpretation of Pilate’s words is that they express sympathy for Jesus or that they are intended to elicit sympathy from the crowd so that Pilate can set free a man in whom he finds no guilt. In such a reading, “Behold the man” would amount to “Look at the poor fellow! Hasn’t he been punished enough already?”
People who have studied the Roman practice of crucifixion tell us that condemned prisoners were routinely scourged after sentence was passed and before they were led to their execution. This, in fact, is the order of events found in Matthew’s gospel (27:26, “So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.” There is no flogging in Luke, but in 23:22, Pilate says that he will flog Jesus and then release him.)
The Fourth Gospel has moved the flogging to the center of the trial. The purpose for this is to make the crowning with thorns the centerpiece of the trial. Our author sees the trial and crucifixion of Jesus as the ironic coronation, enthronement, and acclamation of the true King of Israel. The intention of Pilate and his soldiers is to make cruel sport of Jesus, but in so doing they are unknowingly cooperating in the fulfillment of God’s plan for the glorification of Jesus.
Oftentimes the key to understanding a Johannine passage lies in the Old Testament. So, we come back to our opening question: What did the gospel writer intend by having Pilate say, “Behold the man”? Does this expression occur in the Old Testament, and does the context make it relevant to our present text?
The expression “Behold the man” in Greek is “Idou ho anthropos.” Using a computer program, we can search the Greek version of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) to see if this expression occurs in it. The result is one hit. That is, there is only one place in the Greek Old Testament where the expression “Idou ho anthropos” (“Behold the man”) occurs. This is in 1 Sm 9:16.
The context is as follows: The people wanted a king, and, despite Samuel’s reluctance, God had told him to anoint a king for the people. Samuel did not know who it would be, until God gave Samuel a revelation: “At this time tomorrow I will send you a man . . . whom you are to anoint . . .” When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the Lord said to him, “Behold the man of whom I told you; he is to govern my people.” Thus, Saul became the first King of Israel.
God shows Samuel the man whom he is to anoint as king of Israel—Saul. “Idou ho anthropos” (“Behold the man”), he says.
By echoing these words and putting them on the lips of a Roman official, “John” forms an arc between the first king and the last. For “John” and his community, the promise of the Messiah is fulfilled in Jesus. Soldiers, who in the Roman Empire frequently played a role in choosing the Emperor, have unwittingly crowned the true king of Israel.
Burial in a Garden
John 19:41 and Septuagint Neh 3:16 (2 Esdras 13:16)
Another text in John where the Old Testament background is important for understanding the message is 19:41. Why does the author mention that Jesus was buried in a garden?
The common-sense answer to this question would be, “John says that Jesus was buried in a garden because Jesus was buried in a garden.” But John often invites his readers to look below the surface of the narrative for a deeper meaning.
Again, the first place to look is the Old Testament. If we do a computer search of the New American Bible for the words buried and garden, we get three hits: one is our present text, and the other two are 2 Kgs 21:18 and 26. These verses narrate the burials, respectively, of Manasseh and Amon, kings of Judah, in a garden. This would be enough to establish a royal motif in John—Jesus, the true king, receives a royal burial. But there is one more bit of evidence that cinches the argument: The Septuagint version of Neh 3:16 (2 Esd. 13:16) mentions “the garden of the grave of David.” This is not found in the Hebrew Old Testament (Masoretic Text). It shows that the garden burial is not only a royal motif, but a Davidic motif as well, one of several parallels that the author of the gospel draws between Jesus and David, as we shall see.
The Temple Cleansing
Jn 2:16 and Zech 14:21
Let us look now at the Temple Cleansing.
13 Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. 15 He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, 16 and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
When you read this story you might wonder, “Well, how can you have sacrifices without animals?” This has led some interpreters to discern that Jesus intended to put an end to the sacrificial cult altogether.
But more important is the question, “What did the author intend?”
In recalling Jesus’ expulsion of the sellers of animals and money changers from the Temple, the author is portraying Jesus as fulfilling two Old Testament prophesies—one is quoted but the other is not quoted. The one quoted is Ps 69:10 “zeal for your house will consume me.” The one not quoted is Zec 14:21 “…On that day there shall no longer be any merchant in the house of the Lord of hosts.”
The “day” referred to here is the “Day of the Lord” when God would intervene in history. One of the things that will happen on “that day,” according to Zechariah, is the ritual purification of Jerusalem and the Temple. The gospel is telling us that, in the public ministry of Jesus, that day has arrived.
“They found him on the other side of the sea.”
Jn 6:25 and Bar 3:30
In John 6 there are several mentions of crossing the Sea. In vss. 1-2, Jesus went across the Sea and a large crowd followed him. After Jesus fed the crowds, his disciples went across the Sea to Capernaum (17) but Jesus was not in the boat. He comes to them walking on the water (19). The next day, the crowd that remained across the sea came to Capernaum looking for Jesus (22-24). Vs. 25 says “and they found him on the other side of the sea.”
Here, the Greek, “kai heurontes auton peran tEs thalassEs echoes Bar 3:30 “tis diebE peran tEs thalassEs kai heuren autEn” (“Who has crossed to the other side of the sea and found her?”). The “her” here is Wisdom and the question is rhetorical, as vs 31 indicates, “No one knows the way to her nor has any understood her paths.”
The representation of Jesus as incarnate wisdom fits in with the author’s desire to represent Jesus as the fulfillment of all Jewish traditions: her feasts, her covenant, her law, her prophets, her wisdom. This motif begins with the very first words of the gospel: “In the beginning.” These words are certainly an evocation of the opening words of Genesis, but that is not all. In Jewish wisdom literature, Wisdom is personified as a woman. (Both the Hebrew and Greek words for “Wisdom” are feminine in gender.)
In Sirach 24:9, Lady Wisdom says, “Before all the ages, in the beginning, he [the Lord] created me.
There is a further wisdom allusion in Jn 1:14: “The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.” This is, of course, an allusion to the presence of God among his people in the desert sanctuary, which was a tent. We can see this connection in the motif of glory (“and we have seen his glory”) which is associated with the tent in the wilderness narratives. But, again, there is also a wisdom connection. In Sirach 24:7, Wisdom narrates how she sought a resting place in the world. In the next verse, the Creator chooses a spot for her tent.
So, when the gospel tells us that the crowd found Jesus across the sea, the echo of Bar 3:30 is meant to inform us that the in the person of Jesus, wisdom has finally been found.
Walking on Water
Jn 6:19 and Job 9:8
What is the meaning of Jesus’ walking on water in Jn 6:19? Here, I would suggest that an important text for understanding this passage is Jb 9:8, in which God is said to have trampled the waves of the sea. In the context, Job is speaking of powerful deeds that only God can do. It may well be that Job is alluding to the creation of the world, since, in the next verse, God is said to have made the Bear (what we call the “Big Dipper”) and Orion and the Pleiades. Job may also be alluding to the myth of creation by combat. We have an ancient version of this myth in the Enuma Elish, in which the god Marduk must defeat the chaos monster Tiamat (a name which refers to the ocean depths) in order to create the world. This myth is not found in the Genesis creation story, but remnants of it can be found in the Old Testament, e.g. Ps 24:1-2: “The earth is the Lord’s for he founded it upon the seas.”
God is said to have trampled the waves of the sea. Trampling on a defeated foe was a way of showing dominance over him. E.g. Isa 14:25 “I will break the Assyrian in my land and trample him on my mountains.”
Jb 9:8 is important for understanding Jn 6:19. It is true to say that Jesus does what only God could do, but there is more to it than that. By walking on the sea, Jesus shows that he shares in God’s victory over the sea, which symbolizes all forces opposed to God. The scene is a theophany in which Jesus not only does what only God can do but also reveals himself as the bearer of the divine name: “Do not be afraid. I AM” (6:20).
Jesus the Bridegroom: Background for the Wedding at Cana, the Samaritan Woman at the Well, and the Risen Jesus with Mary Magdalene
In the story of the wedding at Cana, Jesus, his mother and his disciples attend a wedding. When the wine runs out, Jesus supplies an abundance of wine. In doing so, he reveals himself to be the true bridegroom. This connection is made by attributing responsibility for supplying the wine to the bridegroom. When the head waiter tastes the water made wine, he calls over the bridegroom. But the reader knows that it is not the bridegroom who has supplied this wine. It is Jesus.
The bridegroom motif is also found in the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well. Here, the Old Testament background is not a single text, but a group of three which all follow the same pattern—what Robert Alter calls a type-scene. These are Gn 24, 29 and Ex 2:16-21. In each of these, a man meets a woman at a well and eventually a marriage ensues.
In Gn 24, Abraham’s servant is sent to find a wife for Isaac. He meets Rebecca at the well at Haran. She gives water to him and his camels. He gives her gifts and eventually she marries Isaac.
In Gn 29, Jacob comes to the same well at midday. He sees Rachel, waters her flock, and eventually marries her.
In Ex 2, Moses meets the daughters of Jethro at a well, enables them to water their animals and marries Zipporah.
By adopting this same type-scene, the author of the Fourth Gospel has set up his reader to expect a marriage.
Jesus, who has already been identified as the Bridegroom comes to the well at midday, just as Jacob did. His request for a drink of water echoes that of Abraham’s servant in Gn 29. When the woman expresses surprise, Jesus offers her a gift—living water.
Eventually, Jesus asks her to call her husband. When she says that she has none, he tells her that she has had five husbands and that the one she now has is not her own. Behind this story lies another Old Testament text: 2 Kgs 17:30-31. When the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel, they removed the native Israelites from their land and replaced them with people from five cities: Babylon, Cush, Hamath, Avva and Sepharvaim. These people brought their gods with them: From Babylon came Marduk and his [unnamed] consort; from Cush came Nergal; from Hamath came Ashina (a female deity); from Avva came Nibhaz and Tartak; and from Sepharvaim came Hadad and his consort Anath.
Just as Yhwh was regarded as the bridegroom of Israel, each of these five male deities was regarded as the husband of his people. So the people of Samaria had five “husbands”—the five male deities that they brought with them to Samaria. The text of 2 Kings ends by saying, “They also venerated Yhwh.”
The Samaritan woman is the embodiment of the Samaritan people: She has had five husbands and the one she has now (Yhwh) is not her own. In encountering Jesus, she is meeting the true bridegroom of the Samaritan people. She eventually believes in Jesus and brings others to believe in him.
The bridegroom/bride motif is also brought out in the story of the appearance of the risen Jesus to Mary Magdalene. Here, the language of Mary’s search for Jesus echoes the language of the Song of Songs. Compare the following two passages:
Song 3:1-4
B On my bed at night I sought him
whom my heart loves-
I sought him but I did not find him.
I will rise then and go about the city;
in the streets and crossings I will seek
Him whom my heart loves.
I sought him but I did not find him.
The watchmen came upon me
as they made their rounds of the city:
Have you seen him whom my heart loves?
I had hardly left them
when I found him whom my heart loves.
I took hold of him and would not let him go
till I should bring him to the home of my mother,
to the room of my parent.
John 20:11-17
11But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb
12 and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.
13 And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”
14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.
15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” 9 which means Teacher.
17 Jesus said to her “Stop holding on to me, 10 for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'”
“Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.”
Jn 6:37 and Gen 3:23-24
Here we are concerned with the second half of the verse, which the NAB renders, “I will not reject anyone who comes to me.” The Greek word rendered “reject” is ekbalo, meaning “to throw out.” It seems to me that the NAB translation is not as forceful as the original Greek. I note that the Vulgate has “non eiciam foras” “I will not expel,” while other English translations have “cast out” or “drive away.”
The weaker rendering of the NAB does not allow the reader to hear an Old Testament echo in the text. It is Gn 3:23-24, where the same Greek word, ekballo, is used of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden for eating food that was forbidden. Jesus, by contrast, says that whoever comes to him (which means: whoever believes in him) will not be driven away. Why? Because they have eaten the food that he gives. The forbidden food that Adam and Eve ate brought them death; the food that Jesus offers gives life. In fact, the church fathers saw the Eucharist as the antidote for the forbidden fruit.
Jesus, Son of David
Jn 13:18 and Psa 41:10;
Jn 18:1-2 and 2 Sam 15:23
We have already seen the Fourth Evangelist’s New David Christology in discussing Jesus’ burial in a garden.
In 13:18, during the Last Supper discourse, Jesus says that he is fulfilling a scripture which says, “The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me.” This is a quotation from Ps 41:10. In order to understand what the gospel writer is saying, we need to know that the superscription of this psalm attributes it to King David. In Jewish tradition, the “friend” who raised his heel against David was considered to be Absalom, David’s son, who revolted against his Father and tried to seize the kingship.
This parallel drawn between Jesus and David comes out again in Jn 18:1. After leaving the place of the Last Supper, Jesus and his disciples are said to cross the Kidron Valley. This detail is not in the text simply to add local color. It echoes 2 Sam 15:23 where David crosses the Kidron valley in his hasty flight from Absalom at the time of the revolt.
Thus, the psalm takes on a fuller meaning in relation to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus while Jesus is portrayed as the New David or rather, the promised descendant of David. The psalm tells us the ultimate outcome of the plot: “The Lord will keep and preserve him.”
“One of the guards struck him in the face.”
Hrapisma in Jn 18:6; 19:3 and Septuagint Isa 50:6
Here we see an example of the Evangelist’s Servant Christology.
Jn 18:6 states that during the trial of Jesus before the High Priest, a guard struck Jesus in the face, while 19:3 states that the Roman soldiers struck Jesus repeatedly. The Greek word used in these passages for a blow to the face is hrapisma. Since this word only occurs once in the Septuagint, it seems clear that the author of the gospel is alluding to Septuagint Isa 50:6 “I gave my back to scourges and my cheeks to blows (hrapismata). . .” The “I” here is the Servant of the Lord. The author of the gospel is thus identifying Jesus as the Servant spoken of in Isaiah.
“He breathed on them.”
Emphysao in Jn 20:22 and Gen 2:7
When the risen Jesus appears to the disciples, we read, “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit.’” Here we have several texts to choose from as background since the verb emphysao occurs seven times in the Septuagint. The strongest candidate is Gn 2:7.
This verse describes the creation of the first human: “The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life . . .” If this is the background for Jn 20:22, then Jesus’ gift of the Spirit is being seen as a new creation and a new birth as children of God.
The Genesis passage is alluded to in Ws 15:11 about an idolater who does not recognize the One who breathed into him a life-giving spirit. Two other passages are about restoration to life. One is 1 Kgs 17:21 where Elijah breathes into a widow’s son to restore him to life. The other is the famous story of the dry bones in Ez 37. Some see this last text as a background: Jesus is breathing new life into the dead community.
Stone Jars
Jn 2:6 and Exod 7:19
In the story of the wedding at Cana, which we have already looked at, the author tells us that the jars which held the water turned to wine were made of stone. Why is this detail important?
If we search the Old Testament for mentions of stone jars we find only one: Ex 7:19. The context is the plagues of Egypt: when Moses changes the water into blood, even the water in stone jars was turned to blood. Could there be an allusion to blood in stone jars (Ex 7:19) in the wine in the stone jars (Jn 2:6)? If so, is it the author’s intention to portray Jesus as a New Moses? But if so, Jesus is not only a New Moses but a more benevolent one – he turns water not into blood but into wine.
John says that the Cana miracle was the first of Jesus’ signs. If there is a link between the first plague and the Cana sign, is there a link between any other plagues and the signs that Jesus performs? We might see a connection between the last of the plagues and the last of Jesus’ signs. This would, like the first sign, contrast Jesus with Moses: the death of the first-born versus the raising of Lazarus.
One objection that could be made is that, whereas Jesus works seven signs, the number of Egyptian plagues was ten. However, the present number of ten plagues results from a combination of sources which brings with it some duplication, e.g. the plague of gnats and the plague of flies. Within the Old Testament itself, there are lists of the Egyptian plagues that add up to seven—the number of Jesus’ signs (e.g. Pss 78; 105).
Certainly, our author has not made a thorough connection between each of the signs and each of the plagues—no sign of Jesus corresponds to the plagues of frogs or hail. Nevertheless, I suggest that the possible link between the first and last plague and the first and last signs is intriguing.
“He bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger”
Jn 8:6 and Jer 17:13b
The context here is the story of the woman caught in adultery. After she is brought to Jesus and accused, Jesus bends down and begins writing on the ground. Since ancient times, much ink has been spilled by commentators speculating on what it was that Jesus wrote. For example, he is said to have written with his finger. This reminded some readers that the tablets of the law which Moses received on Mount Sinai were said to have been written with the finger of God (Ex 31:18). So, some readers proposed that Jesus had written the Ten Commandments on the ground. In some manuscripts of John, we find another suggestion: they say that he wrote the sins of those present.
I would suggest that the solution to our problem lies in an Old Testament text: Jer 17:13: “. . . Those who turn away from you [Lord] will be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.” Jesus has just identified himself as the source of living waters (7:37). Now he is saying by his gesture that those who are testing him have rejected the source of living water and are written on the earth.
But what does it mean to be written on the earth? Since the discovery of the Ugaritic literature—a language very close to ancient Hebrew—it has been recognized that the Hebrew word translated “earth” can sometimes refer to the Underworld. Thus, the NRSV translation of Jer 17:13 instead of having “written in the earth” has “inscribed in the underworld.”
I do not think that we are meant to understand that Jesus wrote the names of his opponents on the ground. The evangelist is not interested in what Jesus wrote, only that he wrote, thus calling to mind the prophesy of Jeremiah.
Conclusion
I hope that you can see from the examples we have given the importance of looking to the Old Testament for background against which to interpret the Fourth Gospel.